KnowThis Blog Postings
Advice for the Toughest Selling Tasks
Cold-Calling 101 (Inc. Magazine)
How to Close a Sale (Inc. Magazine)
As we discuss in our tutorial on The Selling Process, selling can be looked at as a series of activities salespeople undertake as they work to build relationships with customers. Of the eight activities we highlight, two are especially critical and often separate star salespeople from average salespeople.
The first of these critical activities is Generating Sales Leads, where the salesperson must locate potential sales prospects. As we note in the tutorial, there are several approaches to lead generation. However, for most salespeople, no matter which method they use, this aspect of their job is often the most time consuming. Additionally, it is common for success to come only after a significant amount of rejection.
The other critical activity is Closing the Sale, where the salesperson attempts to get the buyer to commit to a purchase. This is often cited for being the most difficult sales activity to master. Closing requires the salesperson be skilled in both verbal persuasion and in the ability to interpret customer behavior in order to determine when a closing attempt should be made.
To help address these critical selling activities, Inc. Magazine has published two useful stories. One story deals with cold calling, a particularly challenging, though often effective, form of lead generation.
Your chances of making a productive cold call will be vastly improved if you have knowledge about the companies you are calling and the industries they operate in. Read annual reports, news releases, websites, and any news reports you can find about the company.
The other story discusses techniques and philosophies for closing the sale.
For successful businesses, the sales process has become a communications process that evolves through a series of decisions both you and your customer will be making. At each decision point, you will be achieving mutual understanding and establishing clarity about what you are saying to each other and how you will proceed.
Several experts are quoted in these stories. Which of statements made by these experts seem most surprising?
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